By Naonobu Nishimoto

The Exhibition of Neil Gordon Munroﾕs Ainu Crafts Collection was held at the Historical Museum of Hokkaido, from April 26 to June 9. It contained superb Ainu crafts collected by Munro, and other displays concerning his life and achievements. It was a good opportunity to find out more about the Ainu who are the original inhabitants of Hokkaido, but are now a minority ethnic group in Japan. In reality, however, even Hokkaido people seldom appreciate their existence as a minority in their daily lives, so this was a very enlightening exhibition for them.

In 1892, the 24th year of Meiji, a Scottish physician, N. G. Munro set foot on Japanese soil. Soon he became interested in the culture of the Japanese Islands, especially in the Ainu. In the course of time, he came to settle down in Nibutani, in Piratori town, Hokkaido. He lived there with the Ainu researching their culture and collecting ordinary tools and utensils which they used in their every day life. He was respected as a gentleman who loved the Ainu people and lived among them.

The turning point in Munro's life was when he became a doctor on an Indian Line ship in 1888, after he had graduated from the Medical School of Edinburgh University. But soon he began to suffer from bad health, and he was hospitalized in Yokohama in 1890. In 1893 he became the eighth director of the very hospital he had been in. Although he was a physician, he was also interested in anthropology. He researched the theme of the“Origin of the Japanese”and collected many archaeological artifacts for his study of the Ainu.

Later he took part in the excavation of Mitsusawa Shell Mound in Yokohama, and he dug out arrow cases and plates used in the magical rites in ancient times. In 1908, he wrote Prehistoric Japan, and in 1916 he went to Piratori in Hokkaido, where he provided free diagnoses, and medical treatment to the Ainu.

While engaged in such selfless activity, he suffered losses in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923; his house and the research materials of his own collection were destroyed in the fire. It goes without saying that it was a heavy blow for him and his family. To make matters worse, World War I broke out, and his family were suspected of being spies. Consequently, they could not buy food easily and were forced to live a miserable life. The final blow was that the house he had rented after the earthquake was burnt down, and the research materials he treasured were all destroyed.

The next year he went to Hokkaido to recover from his difficulties and he built the“Munro House”in Piratori in1933. Then he began collecting the “Munro Collection,ﾓ which was exhibited at the Historical Museum of Hokkaido. Nine years later, in1942, he passed away in Nibutani. Before his death, he left a message, “When I die, please bury me in the Kotan in the same way you do for your people.” The people in Nibutani never forgot the Scottish doctor, and many years later Ainu craftsmen stood up and took action to keep their word to him. They went to Munroﾕs homeland, Scotland, and studied the“Munro Collectionﾓ there and made efforts to restore the Ainuﾕs crafts to their original state. What they restored is now exhibited in the Historical Museum of Hokkaido.

This exhibition is one of the ways to honor the Ainu culture and to find its place in history. The government is supporting this enterprise of spreading knowledge about the tradition of the Ainu. This is a meaningful project aimed at making a society where people respect the pride of the Ainu race as the original inhabitants of Hokkaido.

Tradition is not a thing to let disappear, but to protect and preserve. Among the exhibited Ainu crafts, asymmetrical patterns on the right and left part of the clothes are characteristic, which are not appreciated now, but they produce a unique effect, and we can say that they are wonderfully new. Other typical Ainu crafts are exhibited which are clearly different from the ordinary old ones. On this occasion, I would like you to see the Ainu, the original inhabitants of Hokkaido, in a new light and to realize the importance of its culture, not because it is old but because it is simply marvelous.